All This And Heaven Too
by Lexiconish
Summary: "He didn't have any experience with children. But this was Rachel's child, his sister's, who he had let down. If there were anything he could do to make it up to her, this would be it." After the death of his estranged sister, Castiel Novak takes responsibility for her orphaned child. He has no idea what he's getting into. Enter Dean Winchester, the officer investigating her death.
1. Funeral

"**All This And Heaven Too"  
by Lexiconish**

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. No profit is being made. I am having a lot of fun, though.  
The characters are from 'Supernatural'. The title is from Florence & the Machine's song by the same name.

**Prologue: Funeral**

He'd known Rachel had a child, of course, though he'd never met the girl before. He'd known she was married, too, but he had also never met her husband, his brother-in-law, merely seen him from a distance at the wedding the entire family had actually bothered to attend.

Seeing the child now, dressed in a black cotton dress in her grandfather's garden, it surprised him how different it was to actually see the child, instead of merely knowing she existed in the abstract sense. He'd never even seen a photograph of her. Once upon a time, when they were children, Rachel and he had been close enough – she'd have followed him to the ends of the Earth – but as they'd grown older, and their family's distant relations with one another influenced them, they'd grown apart. So much so that he'd only learnt the name of his niece today, at Rachel's funeral.

"Castiel, you look as grim as ever."

He fixed his unnerving blue gaze on his cousin, Uriel. "We _are_ at my sister's funeral."

"Of course. Tragic, I know. No one's saying what happened to her _exactly_ but…"

"But you have your suspicions and you think I'll confirm them for you. Well don't bother asking, I know as much as you do; perhaps even less." He turned back to the little dark-haired girl in the garden, plucking grass from the ground and shredding it in a pile at her feet.

"They won't tell you anything either? Typical. I suppose I should expect no less. It wouldn't be decent for people to know the gory details, would it?"

"I'm sure it's not like that." He wasn't sure, but it was expected of him to respond that way, so he did.

"Yes, well."

The girl looked up then, meeting his gaze with equally wide hazel eyes. Her mother's eyes, he knew, knew her father had had brown eyes. Startled, she jumped to her feet and vanished around the corner of the house.

"What will happen to her?" he wondered aloud, and Uriel shrugged.

"At the moment, she's staying at Raphael's house, but he can't take care of her forever. She'll probably be taken to an orphanage. I don't know." That Uriel didn't know usually meant he didn't care, either, but Castiel tried to give him the benefit of the doubt in this case. He said farewell to Uriel and weaved among the mourners. If he didn't, it wouldn't be long until his uncle Zachariah found him, and Castiel had no wish to speak to Zachariah, today of all days.

He was instead discovered by one of his brothers. "Cassie! So good to see you. Unfortunate circumstances as they may be."

Castiel didn't smile, but he was glad to see the tall blonde man with the British accent. "Balthazar," he greeted, nodding his head. "It can't be helped that we haven't seen each other for a while."

"I guess not. I've been abroad too long – everyone's been commenting on my accent." He sighed, looping an arm about his younger brother's shoulders. "It's a shock to hear about Rachel, it truly is. Did Uriel hound you for information yet? Dear Raphie is hiding it from him, and he's pretty grumpy about it."

"He has spoken to me, yes." He slipped out of Balthazar's half-embrace, facing him. "What did you tell him?"

"Everything I know. It's best that way, I find, like ripping off a band-aid. I told him I knew she and her husband had been stabbed, possibly a mugging, and that's all I've been told. It's a bit annoying, really, when you and I knew her better than anyone else here."

"Anyone else here? So I suppose that means…"

"No, Cassie. No one's been able to contact either of them. It's not surprising, so don't act like it is."

"You're right, of course." Castiel spotted the child across the room now, pressed right into the corner and eyeing what must have been a lot of strangers to her warily. "Uriel told me that the girl will probably be put into the system. Do you know if that's true?"

"If Uriel said it, it probably is. You know I met her once, when she was a baby of course. It was just luck that one of my annual trips home coincided with her birth. Rachel called me up. Weird pudgy lump of flesh… she's different now."

"I'd never seen her before. I heard from Zachariah that she existed… but Rachel never told me herself. So she must have been born near Christmas then. How long ago?"

"Three years, I think. Yes. Well, Cassie. I'm sure there'll be some discussion later on, and we'll talk then, but I'll be leaving you for now."

The service was led by Pastor Jim Murphy, and though there were no tearful, nostalgic eulogies, it was a respectful service, and Rachel and her husband Ryan's friends told some enlightening stories of Rachel's life since he lost contact with her.

Afterwards, Castiel noticed a few other children around, none of them crying, and of varying ages. He knew they didn't belong to anyone in his family, and could only assume they were the children of Rachel and Ryan's friends. He watched curiously as one of the other little girls approached Rachel's daughter and returned to her friends rather put-out by her silence.

Gradually the unknown faces began to dissipate, and within only an hour, all that remained was Castiel's family. His uncle Zachariah, a balding man with a smarmy look about him that was always off-putting, and his two adopted sons, Uriel and Raphael, both dark-skinned and not blood-brothers. His cousin Hester, a blonde woman who often reminded him of Rachel, and her brother Inias, a quiet man with a neat mop of black hair atop his head. His brother Balthazar and their oldest brother Michael, black hair and blue eyes like Castiel, sat at the table with Castiel.

At the head of the table sat the eldest of them all, Joshua, Castiel's maternal uncle. He had no children, but had a great fondness for plant life. "Are we all here, then?" he asked.

Castiel glanced outside where the girl sat plucking grass again. They were not all assembled; Michael's twin Luc was absent, as were Castiel's other siblings Anna and Gabriel, and indeed Castiel's father. Their mother had died when Castiel was little, and he didn't remember her well. But of course it was no surprise to anyone that these four would be missing, and so no one mentioned it.

"Then I suppose we need to talk about what to do with Danielle."

At the mention of her name, the girl looked up again, and seeing the room of sombre people dressed in suits and plain black dresses, quickly turned away.

"I cannot continue to care for her," Raphael pointed out. "I'm not in any position to care for a child. I work full-time, over-time, usually. Someone else needs to take her home today, it can't be me."

"Regrettably, my job requires me to travel regularly," Balthazar cut in, "and let's face it, I'm a bachelor. I'm no role-model for a kid."

"There's no room in our apartment, and quite simply, I do not want children," Hester said. "So Inias and I can't take her."

"I don't see why we don't just put her into care and be done with it," Uriel complained. "Why waste time discussing this? None of us can look after a child."

Castiel frowned. It was a valid point; most of them worked full-time and were rarely ever home. Additionally, he couldn't imagine any of his relatives raising a child, besides Zachariah, and really he questioned how that had turned out when he saw what serious people Uriel and Raphael had grown into, in spite of Uriel's excellent sense of humour. He couldn't picture, or didn't _want_ to picture, Rachel's child in any of their homes. At the same time, it would be a shame to place her in an orphanage. At such a young age it would be difficult to understand why no one in her family had taken her in, especially having such a large one. It would seem to her that no one wanted her, and Castiel knew Rachel would never have wanted that for her child.

But then, what else could they do?

"I can take care of her tonight," Michael was saying, "but that's the most I can manage. We need to find a home for her before tomorrow night."

"I can start looking as soon as I get home," Zachariah offered, "I'll find one that'll take her on short notice and it'll be cleared up in no time. Problem solved."

'_She isn't a problem. And you know she can _hear_ us.'_ His eyes widened, and he shot a glance outside. Danielle sat stiffly on the ground, hands clenched on her knees, eyes squeezed shut, even though she wasn't (yet) crying. _'She can hear all of this, it must sound like...'_ He stood abruptly. "I'll take her. I can do it."

Everyone stared at him, even Danielle. Balthazar slowly reached out to push him back into his seat. "Cassie… I don't think you understand what that would mean. It's not an easy task, and you work full-time too, like the rest of us. You're biting off more than you can chew if you do this, I guarantee it."

"No one else is offering," Castiel protested, "and it wouldn't be fair to give her up. She's family, she's Rachel's daughter. I will take her."

"What about your workload?" Zachariah pushed. "You work for me; I know exactly how many hours you do Castiel. You can't raise a child like that."

He scowled. "I'll cut back on my hours. You don't need me there every day for that long and you know it."

"But-!"

"Enough," Joshua interrupted, voice soft, but everyone instantly silenced. "If Castiel thinks he can do this, well, let him try. If he cannot manage, we can give her away then. It isn't a problem."

"Fine." Michael rested a hand on Castiel's shoulder, squeezing slightly. "It's settled then. If you're absolutely _sure_ Castiel."

He hesitated; he had no experience with children at all, and it was true he worked long hours. But this was Rachel's child, his sister that he'd let down, that he'd lost contact with, who he had not seen since her wedding, well over three years ago, and if there were anything he could do to make it up to her, this would be it.

He nodded. "I am sure."

_A/N: This idea is… different. I'm not 100% sure where I'm going with it, and I've never written for the Supernatural fandom before, please bear in mind. Honestly, there's a chance everyone'll be a bit out of character, and I'm really, really nervous about writing for this fandom. There are a lot of excellent fan fictions for it and it's intimidating to emerge into that, but I've wanted to write something for it for a long, long time now, and I've never had a good enough idea to do it._

_This idea is probably still not good enough, but at the moment I'm just happy to be writing something. You do not have to review, I don't expect anyone to, but it would be nice if you feel like it. Constructive criticism is very, very welcome, but please if you do have something to say, don't be a dick about it – try to keep it constructive._

_And that's about it guys! Dean will be in next chapter, I promise, and I'll be more detailed too. This chapter is kind of a prologue. I say kind of, who am I kidding, it _is_ a prologue._

_Lexiconish._


	2. Occupation

"**All This And Heaven Too"  
by Lexiconish**

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. No profit is being made. I am having a lot of fun, though.

The characters are from 'Supernatural'. The title is from Florence & the Machine's song by the same name.

**Chapter One: Occupation**

_Beep, beep, beep, beep—_

"Dammit Dean! That's twice this morning, get up already!"

_-beep, beep, beep, beep, bee-_

Dean cracked his eyes open a slit; just enough to glare at his moose of a brother, Sam, standing over him with a blessedly silent alarm clock in his hand. "Get. Up."

"Mmmmm… time 's it?"

"Eight o'clock. If you aren't going to get up when this goes off," Sam shook the clock for emphasis and looked rather like Big Foot with a strange new toy, "then don't bother turning it on and waking everyone else living here."

"Bitch," Dean grumbled, slowly shifting upright.

"Just get up, jerk."

Sam was making a big deal out of nothing, as usual. It was Dean's day off; he hadn't meant to set his alarm, so really _Dean_ was the one who was suffering most here.

Wait. He grabbed his phone, checking the date. "Crap." He shot to his feet, rushing down the hall to the bathroom, ignoring his brother's pissy comments about making too much noise. _'Wrong day!'_ He grimaced, taking a quick shower and hastily getting dressed. Thoughts of _'late, late, late!' _repeating over and over in his head as he raced into the kitchen, where his brother was just sitting down to breakfast, and stole Sam's slice of toast from his plate.

"Hey! Dean!"

"Sorry Sammy, I'm late!"

He bolted out the door and down the front steps to his car – a beautiful 1967 Chevy Impala he'd lovingly maintained himself since he was a teenager – and used as many shortcuts as he could remember in hopes of shaving off enough time…

No such luck. He arrived twenty minutes late to the station where Bobby Singer was waiting, looking more disgruntled than usual. "Shit… sorry Bobby."

"Yeah, you better be. It's Jo you're going to have to face about this, not me."

Dean grimaced; Jo was his partner, a fierce and determined young woman who had as much bite as her mother, and possibly more besides if you pushed her. Muttering another apology to Bobby, he shuffled past and into the office where a slender blonde woman with large intelligent brown eyes was waiting, arms crossed over her chest and leaning on his desk. "Oh. You decided to show. You do know we have a case right now, don't you?"

"Alright, alright, it's only twenty minutes Jo. Haven't you ever been late? Get your ass off my desk. We've gotta go talk to relatives today, right?"

"Mmhm. I already got everyone's locations, since you were occupied. There's a lot of them, I'm tempted to split up."

"Well, that's not your decision to make, it's mine. And we're going together. I'm not letting you interview anybody by yourself yet – this is your first homicide."

"Huh. How much different can it be?"

Dean didn't burst her bubble. She'd know soon enough, experience being the best teacher. Jo had transferred from another department, and even there she'd been relatively new. Dean, currently partnerless as Victor Hendrickson had gotten a promotion elsewhere, had been given the rookie. He didn't mind, Jo was cool, and easy on the eyes as a bonus. He'd known Jo since high school too, and he was only a little embarrassed to admit he was scared of her mother.

"Who first then?" Jo asked, leaning over his shoulder to look at the file in his hand.

"I'd normally go to the parents, then siblings but…" he frowned, "mother deceased and father declared missing over twenty years ago, legally dead. So siblings first. Whoa, no kidding, quite a few relatives." He shrugged. "Oldest first – Michael Novak… he has a twin."

"Awesome."

"Missing."

"… Weird family. So do you think someone in the family's killing everyone off?" Jo asked inquisitively, eyes shining.

"I'm sure it's a theory, Jo, but a pretty insubstantial one without even talking to the people. Come on, grab your coat."

"Is it weird that I'm kind of excited? 'Cause I'm kind of excited."

…

By the time they'd met Michael and Balthazar, Jo's excitement was waning. They'd been informed by Balthazar that the only other sibling that was contactable and whom had been close to Rachel was Castiel, who they would find at home as he had time off at the moment. "You could contact our cousins too. We're not a tight-knit family," he'd told them, "but we trade business. Still, I doubt any of us killed her. I was told it was a random mugging?"

So now they were at Castiel's apartment building, much nicer than any apartment building Dean had been to before, and Jo was considerably more solemn. "Their family sounds depressing."

"I guess. It's kind of worse when you come across really broken families… or when you talk to really grieving relatives. That sucks." Dean sighed. "You right to go in?"

"Sure. Go ahead and knock. Or buzz. Or however you do it here."

Dean knocked. They waited. No response. Exchanging a glance with Jo, Dean shrugged and tried again.

"Coming, one moment please_,_" a low gravelly voice called from inside, and they could hear movement. The door swung open to reveal an average sized man with dark hair that looked as if he'd just rolled out of bed, and eyes a shocking shade of blue, with stubble shadowing his chin. "Hello."

"Hi," Dean began, ignoring the sense of familiarity he got from the guy (the face, he'd seen it somewhere before…), "Detective Dean Winchester, this is my partner Jo Harvelle; we're looking for Castiel Novak?"

"I am Castiel."

"Great," Jo groused, "and I guess you weren't very close with your sister either? Your family is _weird_."

Dean glared.

"What?"

"I suppose we may be somewhat unconventional," Castiel acknowledged. "Please come in."

"Sorry about Jo. She's new. And young. And mouthy," Dean tried to apologise. Jo only scoffed.

"It's quite all right…" Castiel trailed off, eyes focusing on a small girl peeking around the door of what might have been a bedroom. "Danielle… please wait in there."

She blinked and silently retreated, closing the door with the softest click.

"Who was that?" Dean asked, sitting down without waiting for an invitation.

"My niece. She's… very quiet."

"She would be… the daughter of the deceased?" Jo shook her head. "Sorry, I mean… your sister?"

"Yes. I am caring for her now."

"So you and Rachel were close?"

"No. We were, once. Perhaps I felt I owed her something. I fear I may be out of my depth." He sighed, sinking into the chair opposite Dean, leaving Jo to settle on the stool at the breakfast bar. "I apologise, I probably cannot be of much help. Rachel and I drifted apart over the years; I hadn't seen her in over three."

Even that titbit told them something, actually. "Your brothers told us you have three siblings who are missing," Dean informed him, though actually they hadn't even mentioned Michael's twin, it was the file that told him that.

"Oh they're not missing… Luc is," he admitted, "but Gabriel and Anael cut and ran. That is, at different times throughout our lives, they both ran away and severed contact with us, for their own reasons."

"Luc. Were he and Michael friendly?" Dean knew most twins were nearly inseparable, and didn't expect much different.

"Not at all. They hated each other, and were constantly competing on everything, no matter how inconsequential it might have been." Seeing Dean's surprise he added, "Luc disappeared shortly after our father did. Most of their competition seemed to be about getting his approval."

'_Messed up family,'_ Jo thought, but this time she kept it private. "Even though you weren't close," she said instead, "did you know anyone who might've had a reason to harm Rachel? Forgive me, but with so many missing people in your family…"

"I understand, but I don't know anything. I'm sorry. I'd like to help more if I could, for all the distance I cared about Rachel a great deal. I was told it was just a mugging, though – surely the killer didn't know her?"

"We don't know," Dean said before Jo could spill the entire case file. She glowered as if she knew what he was thinking; she wasn't that dim. "That is a possibility but… while Ryan had simply been stabbed; your sister had been carefully arranged over ash so it appeared she had wings. It doesn't seem like a random mugging, but we'll let you know more when we uncover it, Mr. Novak."

"I see… my cousins kept that from me. I'm sure they had their reasons."

"Maybe they didn't wanna upset you," Jo suggested, but she didn't mean it. She was suspicious now. They thanked Castiel and left, and Jo kept quiet right up till they got into Dean's car. "It's suspicious, isn't it? Balthazar thought it was just a mugging too – neither he nor Castiel knew about the movement of Rachel's body. But Michael wasn't surprised."

"It's suspicious," Dean acknowledged, "but it's still too much speculation. Don't set your heart on that being the answer or you'll miss things that could be important. Okay? We don't know enough to nail _anyone_ yet."

"Okay, but do you think we should talk to the cousins?"

"Maybe, but not just yet. Right now I'm thinking we should get lunch." He paused, his brow creasing. "Hey, did that Castiel guy look familiar to you?"

"No, why?"

"Could swear I've seen him somewhere before. Never mind, I'll think of it. Roadhouse?"

"You just wanna please my mother, don't you?"

He shrugged. "Come on Jo, it's not just that. The Roadhouse do good burgers, and they're cheap." He started the car, pulling out into traffic.

"Hmm. I'll have to suggest she raise the prices on them then."

Jo's mother, Ellen Harvelle, ran the best bar in the city (at least in Dean's opinion), The Roadhouse. It was a popular hangout for cops and crooks alike, kind of a neutral territory. Dean was friends with the live-in genius hacker, Ash. He'd never threatened to arrest the guy, Ash was pretty harmless. The Roadhouse was that kind of place.

"You wouldn't dare!" Dean gasped. "I'll tell her about the motorbike, Jo. Don't make me do it."

Jo scowled. "Fine, spoilsport."

…

"You can come out now."

Castiel stood in the bedroom doorway. It was his spare room. Well, he guessed now it was Danielle's room. At the moment it was as bare as Castiel's own, white walls, white carpet, white blankets, white shelves, but tomorrow Raphael, Uriel and Balthazar were going to help him move all of her belongings here. Perhaps she would warm up to the place with some familiar comforts.

"I'm making sandwiches… would you like one?"

Danielle stared at him blankly from her position cross-legged on the bed. She hadn't spoken a word to him yet, and he knew for a fact she wasn't mute. "Probably the shock of losing her parents," Balthazar had told him. "Don't let it get to you, Cassie."

"You need to eat, you know. If you like, I can bring it in here for you. You can eat it in here alone if it'll make you feel better."

Her only response was to turn her back to him and curl up facing the wall.

"I'll bring you one…" he sighed, closing the door. Returning to the kitchen he considered the new information the detectives had given him. So Rachel might have been murdered? If he thought about it, he realised the notion didn't surprise him. The Novaks were a large and wealthy family, and they weren't without enemies. Besides that, they'd lost people before. It was possible any of them or all of them might be dead as well.

But it was unusual that she had been killed in such a way. _'Arranged her over ash as if she had wings?'_ he mused. _'That's… strange, isn't it? And Ryan wasn't treated in the same way…'_

What worried him most was that he hadn't been told this by his family, who must have known after all. Perhaps not Balthazar, but surely Michael would have known, Michael who was practically the head of the family, cousins and uncles included?

He stiffened at the sound a door creaking open, turning slowly to see Danielle in the entrance to the kitchen. She was clutching a pillow to her chest tightly, and eyeing him cagily, but she was there and so he held out a plate with a sandwich on it, trying his best to be reassuring.

She edged forwards and took the plate carefully with one hand, scurrying from the room immediately afterwards. Castiel's shoulders slumped; he had no idea how to care for a child normally, but one who was clearly traumatized was… Balthazar was probably right and he was in way over his head, but she was here now, and this was going to be her home. It would be cruel to put her into an orphanage now.

'_Give her time,'_ he told himself, _'she'll get better. In the meantime, forget about the strange circumstances of Rachel's death – the police will deal with it.'_


End file.
